Sodium Citrate

Sodium Citrate appears in 16,433 indexed US food products. No FDA SAFFA status or CSPI rating is attached in this snapshot, so this page reports prevalence rather than a safety verdict.

What the data can answer

Sodium Citrate appears in 16,433 catalogued products, but this snapshot has no FDA SAFFA status or CSPI Chemical Cuisine rating attached to it. This page therefore cannot answer whether the ingredient is safe from those sources. It can show how often it occurs, where it tends to sit on labels, and which kinds of products contain it.

16,433
catalogued products
#60
usage rank of 247,206
2,706
named brands represented
60%
average depth down ingredient lists

Catalog prevalence comes from Open Food Facts ingredient lists. FDA SAFFA and CSPI Chemical Cuisine labels are shown only when the source record contains them.

Reading this ingredient record

Audit the co-occurring flags first

57.4% of the linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, making co-occurrence the dominant follow-up question. That figure does not identify Sodium Citrate as the trigger. Open records such as 1% Lowfat Cultured Buttermilk; 10 fl oz juice drink - strawberry kiwi; 100 Calorie Greek Nonfat Yogurt and inspect which ingredient row carries the caution marker. The 77.2/100 product average is therefore a triage signal for this surrounding formulation set, not an ingredient verdict. Its 60% average label depth helps locate the term when checking the package.

57.4% of linked products contain a separately flagged ingredient

Processing is unusually concentrated here: Group 4 accounts for 15989 of 16328 NOVA-tagged records. That describes the surrounding products, not the substance. For a useful comparison, hold category and processing level constant, then inspect which named component changes alongside the caution flag; otherwise the product mix will confound the ingredient question.

Next check: open the lowest-scoring linked formulation and locate the exact caution-marked component.

High-volume listing for Sodium Citrate - usage rank #60

Usage rank
#60
of 247,206 ingredients that appear in at least one catalogued product.
Typical depth in an ingredient list
60%
Mean relative depth 60% across 16,434 parsed labels, slot 14.6 on average. Sodium Citrate tends to sit in the lower half of the list. Depth is location on the label, not a measured dose.

Ranks use Open Food Facts ingredient rows on this site’s refresh cycle. 247,206 ingredients with ≥1 product appearance enter the ranking. Prevalence and list depth are catalog facts, not toxicology.

What else is usually in the same product as Sodium Citrate

Across the 16,433 products on this site that list Sodium Citrate, these flagged additives appear alongside it most often. The comparison column is how often each one appears across every product with a parsed ingredient list, so the two figures are measured over the same set. Red 40 shows up about 3.8x more often with Sodium Citrate than in the catalogue at large.

Red 40: +15.2ppRed 40+15.2ppBlue 1: +12ppBlue 1+12ppYellow 5: +10.2ppYellow 5+10.2ppCarrageenan: +9.5ppCarrageenan+9.5ppSucralose: +9.2ppSucralose+9.2pp
Percentage-point gap vs the catalogue baseline rate for each additive, Sodium Citrate products only. Source: Open Food Facts ingredient lists.
Chart values as text

Unit: percentage points above/below baseline. Data current as of September 2026.

Red 40
15.2pp
Blue 1
12pp
Yellow 5
10.2pp
Carrageenan
9.5pp
Sucralose
9.2pp
Additive Shared products Share of Sodium Citrate products Share of all products
Red 40 3,379 20.6% 5.4%
Blue 1 2,666 16.2% 4.2%
Yellow 5 2,465 15% 4.8%
Carrageenan 2,306 14% 4.5%
Sucralose 1,955 11.9% 2.7%

Co-occurrence describes what manufacturers formulate together. It is not a claim that these additives interact, and it carries no regulatory meaning. Counted over products with parsed ingredient lists; Open Food Facts, 2026-09-01.

How do the sampled products compare?

Each point is one of the 16 sampled products listed below: its overall safety score against how many separately flagged ingredients its label carries. Bubble size is the number of ingredient rows the label actually resolved to.

Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing Sodium Citrate

Per-product safety score and flagged-ingredient count from the same sampled listings shown below. Bubble size = linked ingredient rows. Source: Open Food Facts labels x FDA SAFFA x CSPI Chemical Cuisine. 2×2 strategic matrix plotting 16 entities by Safety score (X) and Flagged ingredients on label (Y), with a crosshair dividing the plot into four quadrants. High score, still flaggedLow score, more flaggedHigh score, fewer flaggedLow score, fewer flagged 050100150 0246 Safety score Flagged ingredients on label Safety score vs. flagged-ingredient count for products containing Sodium Citrate
Per-product safety score and flagged-ingredient count from the same sampled listings shown below. Bubble size = linked ingredient rows. Source: Open Food Facts labels x FDA SAFFA x CSPI Chemical Cuisine.

Peer ingredients with comparable catalog mass (near “Malted Barley Flour”)

High-volume peers for Sodium Citrate: 16,433 products, mean screening score 77.2/100. Nearest count peers include “Malted Barley Flour”, “Iron”, “Artificial Flavor”. Axes below stay distinct so count-neighbors do not duplicate score-neighbors.

Similar product count

Nearest other ingredients by Open Food Facts product count (floored at ≥50).

Similar mean product score

Mean product-score neighbours (≥50 scored products), kept separate from the product-count peers above.

Using the Sodium Citrate evidence

Use the 16,433-product footprint and source labels as a starting point, then inspect the records most relevant to your question.

  • Review the sampled product records that list Sodium Citrate to see how the ingredient appears in actual labels. See listed products
  • Place Sodium Citrate next to “Iron” (or another peer) using the same FDA/CSPI and prevalence fields. Compare a peer
  • See the join rules behind screening scores before reading them as dietary advice. See source joins

This page describes published source classifications and product-label coverage. It is not dietary, allergy, or medical advice.

Sodium Citrate — common follow-ups

How should I read safety signals when Sodium Citrate sits in heavily flagged products?

57.4% of linked products contain at least one separately flagged ingredient, so the first task is locating which row carries the caution marker — not assuming Sodium Citrate is the trigger. None of that replaces a product-, dose-, allergy-, or person-specific determination.

Which product shelves show up most often with Sodium Citrate?

Sodium Citrate ranks in the top decile by product count (#60 of 247,206), appearing in 16,433 indexed products led by Snacks. The sample list below is a slice of that footprint, not the full universe.

Why is Sodium Citrate so common on ingredient lists?

The source record does not name a technical effect, yet Sodium Citrate appears in 16,433 products (#60 usage rank). High prevalence here describes formulation frequency, not an approved use level.

Regulatory status: FDA SAFFA (Sodium Citrate). Safety ratings: CSPI Chemical Cuisine; product presence: Open Food Facts via PlainFoodSafe (September 2026). Figures are computed from those sources, no editor-typed counts. Methodology · State regulations.